Section Gl 



SOCIAL AND STATISTICAL SCIENCE 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT: 



E. W. H. FOWLES, M.A.. LL.B., 



Barrisier-at-Law, Brisbane. 



ON UNEMPLOYMENT. 



Our section, Social and Statistical Science, embraces a wide range 

 of subjects that not only attract the attention of scientists, but 

 awake interest in citizens of all classes. Social science takes the 

 academic principles of political economy and invests them with 

 living human interest, bringing armchair theories to the fierce test 

 of daily life, and touchmg closely both the pockets, the bodies and 

 the ethics of an increasing number of the world's workers. I 

 purpose dealing in this address with a new-born department in the 

 realm of political economy — a department presenting problems as 

 inescapable as they are perplexing — problems whose solution is 

 equally essential to the welfare as to the stability of society itself. 



A New Science. — \\^ithin the last live years quite a new depart- 

 ment has been born in the reahn of political economy — the Depart- 

 ment of Unemployment. Ten years ago unemployment was regarded 

 as a good subject for kind-hearted benevolent societies and pious 

 millionaire philanthropists, but not worth the serious attention of 

 statesmen. The unemployed were an annual winter spectacle in 

 England — harrowing, it is true, but temporary, and their troubles 

 were usually mitigated by soup-kitchens and a respectable subscrip- 

 tion list headed by the Queen. In year-books or statistical returns 

 the subject of unemployment, if noticed at all, was relegated to an 

 appendix or foot-note where uncertain figures were bolstered up by 

 vague references to what was done in Germany, Switzerland, and 

 other places on the Continent. But that stage of empirical treat- 

 ment has swiftly passed awa}^ Unemployment has compelled the 

 attention of writers, economists, and statesmen. In 1908 alone 

 New Zealand passed over 15 Acts dealing with industrial legislation. 

 The questions of adjusting the margins of industry and raising the 

 economic standard have become too pressing to be any longer 

 neglected. Unemployment has become a special study, and its 

 vital bearing on kindred questions of pauperism, race survival, 

 moral fitness and emigration is everywhere acknowledged. Labour 

 statistics everywhere are inserting new columns with new headings,. 



